Can your marketing content make people feel as good as chocolate or sex? In this video, I interview a guest who believes it can.

Tim Reid is the founder and host of Australia and New Zealand’s number one business and marketing podcast – The Small Business Big Marketing Show. I was a guest on episode 163 of the show and enjoyed our conversation so much that I asked if he’d come on my channel.

Tim has built a global audience of motivated business owners in 110 countries, and is soon to be a published author. He travels the world as a speaker, introducing business owners and marketers to his highly effective Helpful Marketing approach – gaining success and increasing profits, without spending a fortune.

Transcript

Carmen: Can your marketing content make people feel as good as chocolate or even sex? In this video I interview a guest who believes that it can.
Hi, I’m Carmen Sognonvi. Keep watching to learn how to create content that will bring you customers who are pre-sold and ready to buy. By the way if you’d like to get a list of the seven tools I rely on to run all of the marketing in my business, head on over to carmensognonvi.com/tools.

I’ll tell you everything from who to use for graphic design and printing and I’ll even tell you about an app that helps you track how your flyers are being distributed.
In this video I interview Tim Reid. Tim is the founder and host of Australia and New Zealand’s number one business and marketing podcast: The Small Business Marketing Show. I’m sorry, the Small Business Big Marketing Show.

Tim has built a global audience of motivated business owners in 110 countries and he’s soon to be a published author. He travels the world as a speaker introducing business owners and marketers to his highly effective, helpful marketing approach: gaining success and increasing profits without spending a fortune.
Tim believes there’s never been a better time to market your business, ever. Here’s my interview with Tim. Hi Tim, thanks for joining me today.

Tim: Hello Carmen.

Carmen: So, we are here today to talk about helpful marketing. So can you just give us an idea of what does that mean to you? What is helpful marketing?

Tim: Helpful marketing is based on a beautifully simple premise that every small business I know loves. Helpful marketing is based on the fact that you’re standing on a mountain of knowledge. You know so much about the industry which you operate, so much about the products and services that you sell, and so much about the problems that your customers and prospects have.
So helpful marketing demands that you share that knowledge openly, knowing that it will pull people towards you.

Carmen: Great, and so what are some examples of companies that you feel like are doing this right? And particularly you know, small businesses, maybe mom and pop stores that you’ve seen that really understand this concept.

Tim: Great, so what we’ll do in order to answer that maybe if I could give a step process to kind of get to then examples of businesses doing it right. So a really good first step in helpful marketing is I just reflect on what it’s like to be helpful ok and the last time you helped. So take off your business owner’s hat, take off your marketer’s hat and just think about that time when you helped and that time when you’re helpful and it feels good.

And I’ll tell you a little secret Carmen. It’s not so much a secret–being helpful releases dopamine into the bloodstream, which side of eating chocolate and having sex. So helpful marketing is a marketing strategy that tastes good and feels good at the same time. So you’ll love that.

So first get into that helpful mindset then go out and identify all the questions that you’ve ever been asked from customers and prospects. Every single question from how do we work with you to why do you cost so much? Or why do you cost so little to all the sort of how to questions around your products and services.

And then start to answer them via video, blog posts, podcasts, however whatever the media kind of resonates with you, that you feel most comfortable doing. And then simply start to answer them and each question and answer almost becomes like a blog post. You know it’s like it becomes an additional page on your website.

You should get to the point when you’ve got fifty, sixty, maybe a hundred questions and answers and you can create what I call a knowledge center on your website. So on that knowledge which is like the primary…a primary navigation button on your website, you can have all those questions and answers. And this is just an incredibly rich source of information for your customers.

So not only that but it’s like well why would you have that? Two reasons. It gives Google lots of opportunities to index your business and your rank what you want to rank well on Google.

And it’s quite powerful when a client or customer or prospect rings you or contacts you and says, asks you a question, for you to then be able to email them a link to a video or a podcast or a blog post. What’s simply a page on your website that answers that question in some detail, they’re gonna think you’re a bit of an expert. So that is like that’s the first step in to helpful marketing, answer all the questions that your clients have.

Businesses that are doing this…well I’ll give you a couple of great examples. There is a guy local to me, I’m in Melbourne Australia. And he’s got, he has a boat business where he buys and sells power boats, right.

So it’s a very transactional business and his name’s Darren. And his businesses is called St Kilda Boat Sales. And Darren went from being transactional to transformational by being helpful.
And here’s what he did. He goes down his businesses on the bay, on the on the water. And he goes down every Thursday with his tripod, his iPhone, and a $60 Lapel mic and does a weather report.

He simply says this is what’s happening out on the bay this weekend and how it’s going to affect your boating. He uploads it to YouTube, he grabs that video off YouTube and puts it on his website, he emails that link from his website to his database of email addresses. And we all should build a database as you I’m sure have shared with your audience.

And as a direct result of doing that, two things have happened. Number one is businesses increased 53 percent year on year, simply by being helpful in a pretty tough market selling a high involvement purchase, like a boat. The other thing that’s happened is and he’s done two bits of helpful marketing down.

The videos, the weather reports, and he’s written a book. And you’re gonna love the name of this book. It’s called Honey, Let’s Buy a Boat.

It’s twelve chapters, giving blokes 12 reasons to share with their wife as to why they should buy a boat. That is a really hopeful book as well. He’s been approached by the local, a local TV station and a local radio station to be the weather reporter for the upcoming summer, just gone ok.

And he took the radio job and for the four months over the summer, Darren was the weather guy on Melbourne’s biggest radio station. So that’s just a classic example of not only of taking helpful marketing to the second step which is you know, creating those videos, writing books, whatever it might be. Because what’s really interesting is that when you’re helpful, amazing things happen.

Not only will you get more inquiry but other wonderful things happened, like Darren’s now the weather guy on a radio station. You know for me, I started off creating a podcast six years ago and now I’m an in demand speaker around Australia and the world.

I did 8 countries last year and again just the result of being helpful on my podcast. I’m rambling now, over to you.

Carmen: No, that’s fantastic. Yeah, I think based on what you said you know helpful marketing, there’s a couple of well there’s a lot of side effects.
But one is, as you said it really establishes you as an expert and then that can lead to more opportunities.

Like you mentioned media opportunities you get written up, you get quoted as an expert, and that kind of ends up snowballing. I think the other effect that business owners will notice is that their customers come ready to buy, you know.
So it’s like they’ve already done all the research because you have so much information on your website.

If they’ve taken the time to look through it, instead of that conversation when they call you, instead of you having to sell them on why they should do business with you, it’s almost like yeah I’m ready to start.
Here’s my credit card. Have you found that in the businesses that you’ve worked with?

Tim: Yea, totally spot on. So for my business I get emailed every day or a phone call every other day, saying hey Timbo.
You don’t mind if I call you Timbo do you? Hey Timbo I feel as though I know you.

So that’s pretty powerful marketing and all I’ve done is consistently created a podcast. That’s my helpful marketing.
And the other thing you’re right, they look at your hopeful marketing. Whether it be in be in the form of video, podcasting, a brochure, however you’re sharing your knowledge.

And they call you and when they call you, they’re pre-sold.
So they’re calling you either to make an appointment, to find out where you are, to ask a remaining question that maybe hasn’t been answered.

But the most important thing is they’re less price-sensitive because they’ve developed…they’re familiar with you, they trust you. And they’re kind of, they’re really hoping that you’re the one for them.

Carmen: And so speaking of being price-sensitive or less price-sensitive, what do you recommend in terms of divulging information about pricing on your website? Because this is obviously one of the top questions that customers have. How much is this gonna cost me?
Do you feel like it’s better to be a completely open book?

Do you think you should reveal a little bit? Keep a little bit hidden? What kind of strategies would you recommend for people?

There’s some pricing strategies that I’ve heard along the way that I’ve thought, that’s smart. So first of all your question is prices on the website or off the website.
I don’t know.

There’s not I don’t think there’s a straight answer to that. I think it depends on what you sell, what your competitors are doing, how comfortable you feel about it as the business owner, does it give you an advantage?

You know there’s so many kind of to’s and fro’s…pros and cons to doing it.
From a pricing point of view, there’s a couple of things that just come to mind that are in the discussion around pricing. One is I love seeing pricing plans on websites.

I kind of really, those comparisons.
You know you go to websites like a survey monkey or mailchimp. Two monkey things going on there but I know both of them have got really nice comparison charts, which show what you get for the free offer and then the you know, bronze, silver, gold offer.

And as the offers go up so does what you get.
And it’s just a really nice way of getting ahead around where the value is. And generally in those pricing charts they identify you know, the most popular.

So it kind of drives you to that one.
That’s the one they want you to buy at the very minimum. I like those.

I also I came across and it’s relevant to pricing.
I interviewed a fellow a few weeks ago who had his pricing, in fact no it was a lady. It was…she’s the biggest seller on Etsy. Alicia from Three Bird Nest.

And when I asked her it was because it was like it was just any regular number and it felt a little bit wholesale and it allowed her to get a little bit closer to the next dot rounding it up to the next dollar. So it was just a kind of smart pricing strategy because so often we see you know decimals of 99 or 97 and it’s like yeah that’s kinda common. So pricing’s tough, that’s the outcome of that discussion.

Carmen: Yeah and I think that one way that you can incorporate pricing into the hopeful marketing content that you’re producing is educating people like you said on why are things expensive or why are things cheap. So rather than just divulging all the pricing, you can educate the consumer on what are the different options in the marketplace and then where does your business fall in. And then what are maybe the pros and cons.

It’s kind of like you can go very high end or you can go very low end. Maybe we’re somewhere in the middle or we’re one of those extremes and then why would you do one versus the other. So that way you’re educating without giving away everything right away.

Tim: And that is the discussion. So like there’ll be listeners who were thinking but pricing for me, I can’t give somebody…particularly if you’re in a service industry. It’s like I can’t give you a particular price.

Cool, then that’s your answer but support it with reasons why. Like you know the answer to that question could be…it’s one of the most commonly asked questions. It’s how much do I cost and it’s like well I would love to be able to say X dollars but I can’t because it’s between X&Y dollars.

And here’s why. Right. And here are the factors that you have to think about.

Carmen: Yup yeah, absolutely. So if let’s talk about a specific example. Let’s say there is a bakery, local bakery.

And they feel like they want to kind of dip their toe in the water when it comes to helpful marketing.
What would you say is the first thing they should do? Should it be to compile that list of questions or what do you think? How can they get the ball rolling?

Tim: It’s an interesting question because helpful marketing, the more high involvement the purchase decision, the more effective helpful marketing becomes. Because people are searching online.
Like when you’ve got a high involvement purchase, an expensive purchase, a complicated purchase, you’ve gotta google it.

You’re gonna do your research. Helpful marketing by its very nature helps you rank well on Google.
A bakery isn’t a high involvement decision.

So you go uhhh do I really need to be there? Not so much but they can still…I still think, if you’ve got a website, you should have a blog.
Right?

So on the assumption that the bakery has a website with a menu, with its location, maybe with some testimonials, product shots, all that type of stuff. If they want that website to continually rank well for when someone does a search, a local search for office catering Brooklyn. If I was the bakery in Brooklyn, I’d want to rank…I’d want to be the one who ranks on page one.

And having a blog is going to do that. What’s a bakery’s blog talk about? Good question.
It could talk about the different types of bread rolls, that’d be boring.

But what they do so to get a blog going for any business is like a simple three-step process, which is called an editorial mission. And to get clear on your editorial mission, you simply ask three questions.
What have you got to offer? To who?

And what outcome can they expect?
And if you answer those three questions, it will provide some kind of filtering mechanism for you to decide what to blog about and what not to blog about. So if a bakery editorial mission was, thinking on the run here Carmen, tips and tricks for people in offices around Brooklyn to have a fun lunch.

You know, to have an interesting lunch. Then you can start to blog about things that the bakery does, the little packages they have and little ideas that not only you can get from the bakery but what else can you do around Brooklyn, you know.
You don’t go and eat at the bakery every day. So what other things could you do around lunch time in Brooklyn?

Carmen: Sure, yeah.

Tim: Yeah, so that was a kind of on the run the example but the point is the blog should be sort of engaging and entertaining. It doesn’t have to be completely rational and talk just about what it is that you do.
Carmen: Sure, so speaking of blogging how does helpful marketing relate to content marketing? Because that’s another buzzword that people hear a lot. So is it the same thing? Is it an approach to content marketing? How would people understand those two?
Tim: Great question. Its content marketing is the buzzword and the Internet is, that’s been the enabler. The internet has allowed us to create an infinite amount of content. Microphones, video camera, computer, away we go, you know. Therefore everyone’s creating content.
Put a filter of helpful on it and all of a sudden you’re starting to…if that’s content, then it’s now starting to narrow down to helpful content, helpful marketing. So helpful marketing is purely content that helps your customers make a more informed purchase decision in your favor, as opposed to just smashing out content.

Carmen: Great. And then what ratio would you…do you recommend to people when it comes to…let’s say they’re emailing their list? Obviously if you’re creating this helpful content, then you should be sharing it with your email list. Otherwise, they’re not gonna know it’s there.

Do you have any recommendations for what ratio of content versus promotion that people should do? Because obviously you need both.

Tim: Yeah, you do. So if we were to follow the Gary Vaynerchuk school of thought, Gary being social media expert and he has that book Jab Jab Jab Right Hook. So a jab is a gift, is a gift you know like here’s something helpful.

A right hook is buy from me that’s a three…every three gifts, you get an ask.
I think that could be a bit much but I just think helpful…here’s the thing, helpful marketing, we’re not creating art. Every bit of helpful marketing has a call to action attached to it.

So if I’m creating a video, if I’m the bakery in Brooklyn and I’m creating the video that says here’s the best three spots to get coffee in Brooklyn outside of us, then you do that video and at the end you have a super that says you know by the way we’ve got a lunchtime special on between 12 and 2 every day…every weekday.
Come and see us. There’s your call to action so I think as a ratio you can just…it can be a hundred percent helpful but every time they can be asking it.

And even if there isn’t like a really avert to ask which is like buy for me.
The fact that you’re being helpful is a good thing anyway and it’s going to register with people that I like these guys, you know. I’m gonna keep them on my shopping list.

Carmen: Great, great definitely. So what are some final thoughts that you would like to leave with our viewers, when it comes to helpful marketing. What’s one thing they should really keep in mind?

Tim: I thought you said just final thoughts generally. I was thinking donuts and toothpicks and all those things. Be helpful, like just sit with the idea of being helpful before you jump into the idea.

Be a human being, be a consumer before you’re the business owner or the marketer and think what would you like?
You know, if you were walking into your business, what would you like to see? What information would you like to help make an informed decision?

So do that.
I don’t think enough, we get so caught up in our business as the owners that we forget to be our customers. And that’s really powerful.

So do that and think about and start to feel this concept of being helpful.
After you’ve done that, then just choose a medium. It could be video if you’re comfortable staring down the barrel of a camera, it could be audio, maybe you’re a great writer.

But just start to respond to all these questions that you’re being asked.
And do one a week. Why after a year, that’s 52 questions that you’ve answered.

And put them on your website.
That’s fifty two additional pages that Google can now index and help rank you, ok. And just on that don’t think that because you’re a small business listening to this that you can’t rank well on Google because they update it, well they always update their algorithm.

But a few months ago with the pigeon update, which is what they called the update to their algorithm, they favor local businesses.
So if you are looking for a bakery in Brooklyn and someone does a search for a bakery in Brooklyn, Google really wants to deliver search result from a bakery in Brooklyn.

And that sounds really obvious but if there’s… if a bakery in Brooklyn hasn’t gone and done the work to rank well, then…and Google can’t find one , then they’ll rank one in an adjoining suburb. You know, so yeah do the hard work and enjoy it.
You know, like one of the things I love about helpful marketing is that it is fun it simply relies on the knowledge that you already have.

And my wish for anyone who embarks on any marketing of their businesses, that it becomes a hobby. That they actually really enjoy the next time it comes to marketing their business because if you enjoy it, you’ll do it more often, if it’s a hobby time becomes irrelevant and you’ll just get in to a bit of a rhythm. That’s what I do.

Carmen: Okay, absolutely. Well thank you so much Tim for, Timbo I should say, for spending time with us today.

Tim: No worries Cambo.

Carmen: That’ll be my new Twitter handle, Cambo Sognonvi. So if people want to learn more about what you do, and then also listen to your fabulous podcast, where should they go?

Tim: They can head over to small business big marketing dot com. That’s where my podcast lives. It’s called the Small Business Big Marketing Show.
And I have a forum attached to that website and for right now I think it’s 49 bucks a month.

I mean they’re every day answering people’s questions around marketing and there’s a whole lot of other motivated business owners from many different countries doing the same thing. It’s just a good community to support each other on this journey we call marketing.
So that’s where I’d head over and if you want me to come and speak in an event at a bakery in Brooklyn, I’m here. Just book me.

Carmen: Absolutely, all right thank you so much and everybody definitely check out the show because I think it’s one of the few podcast I know of that really focuses not exclusively but features a lot of local businesses, which I think is very under represented especially online.
So it’s a great show. I’ve been a past guest.

I should’ve looked up which episode number that was before we got on the call.
But I’ll put it in the show notes. And it’s definitely a great show, so definitely check it out. Alright thanks again Tim.

Tim: Thanks Carmen.

Carmen: Wasn’t that a fabulous interview? I learned so much, so here are my top five takeaways from what Tim had to say.

Number one: each week answer one question from a customer. A really easy way to get started with content marketing is to just write out a list of all the questions that customers have ever asked you. Then once a week pick one of those questions and answer it.

Each one of those answers should be either a separate blog post or separate page on your website. By the end of the year, if you’ve been doing this once a week you’ll have fifty two pages of new content on your site, which is gonna be awesome for your SEO and Google search rankings.

Number two: pick the medium that you are most comfortable with. Just because everyone and their grandma and me are doing video, don’t feel pressured to do the same. If you feel really awkward and terrible on camera but you’re an amazing writer, create text content.

That is totally fine. So pick the medium that feels most comfortable for you because that makes it much more likely that you’re actually going to stick with creating content on a consistent basis.

Number three: informed customers are readier to buy and less price-sensitive. By creating all of this helpful marketing content, you are actually educating and informing your customer. And the more educated a customer is, the more willing they will be to buy from you.

You’ll often find that customers will come to you ready to buy. They’ve already done all their research, you’ve already answered all their questions through your website and so they’re actually ready to just get started. What you’ll also find Tim pointed out is that these customers who are educated tend to be less price-sensitive.

You’ve already won them over. You don’t have to try to close the sale because they’re ready to buy and they don’t mind paying for your prices. They’re not going to haggle with you to try to get a better deal because they see the value that you bring. So who doesn’t want customers who are happy to pay your price and ready to buy right?

Number four: the higher your price, the more you need to educate your customer. In order to make a purchasing decision, your customer needs a certain amount of information. That that amount of information varies depending on the price of the product that you’re selling.

If you sell cupcakes, your customer probably doesn’t need all that much information but if you sell boats they probably need a great deal more information. So make sure that you adjust accordingly and understand the nature of the sale.

Number five: add a call to action to every piece of marketing content. This is probably my favorite one because when I was on Tim’s show he actually called me the call to action queen or something like that.
So don’t forget that when you’re creating all this marketing content, the end goal is basically to get them to buy eventually.

So don’t be afraid to include a call to action in every piece of content that you create, whether it’s a video, blog post, an audio podcast. You want to make sure that you add a relevant call to action whether that’s for them to visit that particular page on your website or to call you or to ask about a special that you’re doing. Because that makes it that much more likely that people are going to take action.

Ok, so if you found this video useful I would encourage you to sign up to get email updates from me. Just head on over to Carmen Sognonvi dot com slash newsletter and sign up there. And if you have a question you would like me to answer in a future video, just email it to me at info at Carmen Sognonvi dot com.

Do you design your own marketing materials, but wish they looked more professional?

In this video, you’re going to learn some great tips and tricks to make your home-made marketing materials look high end.

I interview Pamela Wilson. She is an award-winning graphic designer and marketing consultant who has helped small businesses and large organizations create “big brands” since 1987.

In 2010, she founded Big Brand System to show small business owners how a system of strategic marketing and great design makes them look professional, cohesive and successful. She believes that your business may be small, but your brand can be BIG.

Pamela is now Executive Vice President of Educational Content at Copyblogger Media, where she helps people build a strong presence on the web.

Transcript

Do you design your own marketing material, but wish they could look more professional?

Hi. I am Carmen Sognonvi. In this video, you are going to learn some tips and tricks for helping to make your marketing material that are homemade look high-end.

By the way, if you want to get the 7 tools I rely on for marketing in my business, head on over to CarmenSognonvi.com/tools. I’ll cover everything from graphic to design and printing, and I’ll even show you an app that we use where you can track how your fliers are actually distributed.

In this video, I interview Pamela Wilson. Let me tell you a little more about Pamela.

She is an award-winning graphic designer and marketing consultant who has helped small businesses and large organizations build big brands since 1987.

In 2010, she founded Big Brand System to show small business owners how a system of strategic marketing and great design makes them look professional, cohesive and successful.

She believes that you business may be small, but your brand can be big.

Pamela is now Executive Vice-President of educational content at Copy Blogger Media, where she helps people build a strong presence on the web.

Without further ado, here’s is my interview with Pamela.

C: Hi Pamela! Thanks for joining me today.

P: Hi Carmen! I’m so glad to be here.

C: Great, so what we wanted to bring you on today to talk about is design tips. So, A lot of small business owners obviously don’t have large budgets so they are doing their own graphic design, so maybe making their own fliers, posters, maybe even building simple websites, designing emails.

C: And so, what I would really love to get from you, since you are really an expert in this area, is what are some — well let’s start with — What are the top mistakes you would say that you see business owners making when it comes to graphic design? That is making their design look not as professional or as compelling as it could be.

P: Right, it’s such a great question and there is an answer to it that may not be what people are expecting, but I would say that the biggest mistake I see is a lack of consistency.
What happens is that people get enamored with colors or fonts and they say, “Oh, I need to do a flier so I’m going to use that font. It’s so cool. It’s such a cool font. I’m going to use it on my next flier. Then, they see a color, maybe a color a competitor has used and they say, “Oh, you know that red, it looks really good. I’m going to use red on my next flier.”

P: And what happens is all of their materials looks different and there is no consistency between them. So the market that is trying to understand who their business is and trying to get a handle on their brand doesn’t have anything to hold onto to. There is nothing consistent that they see across time.

P: So that, to kinda morph into the next question, I know you wanted to know about simple ways to brand and things that are inexpensive. It’s basically that, picking a couple of fonts, a couple of colors that you decide to associate with your brand and using those very consistently over time and it takes a lot of discipline. It’s not easy.

C: Yeah, that’s a great tip. because one of my first jobs when I graduated from college was when I worked at a marketing consultancy and I had the opportunity to work closely with a couple graphic designers, and I learned a lot. For example, big companies will have what they call — um…I’m forgetting…

P: Style guides. [laughter]

C: Yes, style guides. Right. It will be, you know, exactly, we only use these two colors primarily and these will be the secondary colors. We only use this font. Headers look like this, subheads look like this. So basically things are spelled outs so that’s when you look at material from big companies it has that consistency that you are talking about, right?

P: It’s consistent, and you know what it’s so important with big companies because what happens in a big companies is that you all these different people that make material to represent the brand so and there is no consistency between the people themselves. So they do need some kind of guideline. And what happens is people who have small businesses just think oh well, I”m going to do them so they always look the same because they come from me. But over time, sometimes we have this shiny object syndrome where, like I said, we are like, “Oh, that font. I want to use it.” or “Oh, that color looks great. I want to use that color.”

P: And we end up going after these things that take us off brand. It takes you off brand. It’s like outside of this brand language you’ve developed, it just doesn’t look consistent. So, the reason that’s bad, it’s not because we have to be strict; it’s also because our market is being bombarded with messages a marketing messages all day long from the time they get up to the time they go to sleep.

P: So, if you want any chance in making a dent, an impression with your brand, you need to be very consistent with the way you deliver that message every single time it’s delivered. Because if you do that over time, if you are consistent, then you have a chance that something to happen like for instance, Coca-Cola. When you see that Coca-Cola red with those white letters, you know, even if you couldn’t make out the letters, you would know it was Coca-Cola. And if you see a truck and it’s brown with gold on it, you know that’s UPS, you just know it, you know?

C: Yeah.

P: And that comes from using those branding elements consistently overtime.

C: Great, and so, um, what are some tips that you could share with our audience to make their graphic design look more professional? So, even if they are doing it themselves, complete DIY, what are some simple things they can keep in mind to make just make it look that much more professional?

P: Yeah, well those two things we just talked about are super important so I want to reiterate them. Pick a couple of fonts that you think represent your brand that are easy to read. Use those very consistently. That’s actually going to make your job a lot easier, because you will go to make your brochure or your flier, and there are hundreds of fonts and if you are like me there are thousands of fonts on your computer, and it’s much easier if you say, “No. I’m going to use this one or I’m going to use that one.”

P: And then your big decision is how large I’m going to use it or how bold I’ll use it. The same thing with colors. Doing that alone is going to make it a lot more professional. On top of that, one of the biggest mistakes that people make who don’t have design training try to cram a lot of information into any space.

P: Think about a letter size piece of paper. Somebody who doesn’t have design training tends to put the headline close to the top of the paper, maybe it’s half an inch away from the border of the paper – Um- and then they run the text, also, maybe 1/2 inch from the border of the paper, which is kinda the default margin that most of the program give you. Right?

A designer, immediately, as soon as they open a document, the first thing they do is bring in those margins, because bringing in those margins is going to immediately inject white space into the document and make it look easier to read. So that alone, I mean, that move alone, having 1.5 inch wide margins is going to make it look like a designer had their hands on it. That’s like a super secret professional trick that we use. [laughter]

C: Would that also apply with the space between the lines of text?

P: Somewhat. There is a delicate balance when it comes to that. One of the things you want to do is you want related text to stick together. That’s the highly technical term for what we call it. [laughter] You don’t want to space your lines out so much that you are having to visually hop from line to line to be able to follow them. So, if you have a paragraph of text, you want to have it relatively compact so people see it as one element, if that makes sense.

P: They see your headline as an element. They see your body text as a separate element. And it’s kinda hanging together visually. So you don’t want to spread it out too much. It’s a little different on the web. So, if you are doing it for a website, typically line spacing on a website is a little looser. It’s just a little more open than what you would use in print for like a flier or brochure.

C: Speaking of this phenomenon of trying to pack too much information into one piece, it seems to me a lot of that also comes down to not being super clear on the goal of what that particular piece is supposed to do. For example, I know a lot of people in my audience send me their fliers to critic, and very often they are trying to cram all their products and services they offer, their story all into one piece, and often I’ll tell them, you know, it’s – the only purpose of the flier is to do one thing, so maybe you want them to visit this page on your website or call your phone number. Once they have made contact, then rely that information. Um – so what are some – are there any tips you can share when it comes to when it comes to what is the purpose of each piece?

P: That is a fantastic tip. You can’t ask your one flier to take on the entire burden of marketing your whole business. It’s like too much for that little flier. It usually works better if you think about your marketing as a journey that you are taking your customer along. And usually no single piece of your marketing is going to take them across the whole journey. It’s like this piece is a step, and this piece will move them onto the next place and this piece moves them to the next place.

P: If you think about it that way, you truly can drill down and think, when they are in this part of the journey, what is the one thing to do that will move them to the next part of the journey, and you just, it’s more like stepping stones. You just try to move them along those stepping stones with your different marketing pieces rather than asking one single marketing piece to do the whole job.

P: For example, the way that would play out on a website is you may have a homepage that people land on, so they land on your homepage, and you have various stepping stones on your homepage where they can then move to a further point on their customer journey. So if they are interested in a specific part of your business, you try to move them to a page on the site that talks about that part of your business. So no single page is doing your entire marketing job. You are just kinda moving them to the next point. Does that make sense?

C: Yes, I love that analogy of stepping stones. Of course, you’re a designer so you made it very visual. I think that can help people visual that you go from this stone to the next stone to the next stone. And all along the way, you want to have a really singular focus.

C: Let’s talk about photos. If you are a small business owner, very often you are relying on stock photography. I definitely encourage people, as early as you can to try and get your own photos taken. These days there’s many inexpensive way to do this with so many aspiring photographers out there. But let’s say you don’t have that in place yet, and you are really relying on stock photography. What are some tips you have for picking good photos? As we all know, there’s a lot of terrible, terrible stock photography out there.

P: Yeah. There is a lot of terrible stock photography. There are a couple of things that I tell people to avoid. One thing is, photography usually works better if the people in the photo look like the type of customer you are trying to attract. So you might have a business where all your customers look like professional models, but most of us don’t, so it’s possible that all of your customers are perfectly groomed and wearing little polo shirts – I don’t know – and they just had their hair and makeup done. But most of us don’t have customers that look like that. The first thing to look for is anything that looks like they hired a set of professional models to photograph the.

P: You want real people, right? So, if you are trying to get stock photography that looks like your customer, they should be real people. They should have some __ , have some wrinkles. They should look like real, relatable people. Sometimes you see a photo and you are like, oh that’s perfect, but you want to avoid photos were people are overly posed. They just look like they are posing for a photographer.

Transcript

Did you collect a ton of leads at an event and you’re not sure how to follow up with them? Hi I’m Carmen Sognonvi, keep watching because in this video I will show you the three things you need to do to make sure that you are following up on leads in the right way.

By the way, if you would like to get a list of the seven tools I rely on to do all the marketing of my business, head on over to carmensognonvi.com/tools. I will tell you everything from who we use for graphic design and printing and I will also tell you about a mobile app you can use to track your flyer distribution.

So you collected tons of leads at an event. So you are feeling pretty good about yourself, but you are not sure what to do next. I have three ideas for you, but before we can even get to those ideas, we need to make sure that you set things up the correct way in the first place.

If you haven’t already watched my video on street fairs, be sure to check it out. Because in there I explain why it’s important that you’re not giving out promotional junk at your booth and what you should be doing instead is giving out a free sample or a free trial for that person’s contact information.

Ideally you want to be delivering that sample at a later date so that you will have a reason to get back in touch with them. So when you are actually doing the fair, you want to make sure that you have already offered them an irresistible trial or sample.

Alright, let’s assume that you did that correctly, what do you do next?

Number one is to send a short note that night or the next day. So if you really want to stand apart from all of the other businesses that they met at that event, you want to follow up with them right away.

Now this first follow up doesn’t need to be a full on sales pitch. But what it is it’s just a brief note saying hey, it was such a pleasure to meet you today or yesterday at blah blah blah event. I just want to let you know that I am going to be in touch with you in a few days to deliver you the sample or the giveaway.

And in the mean time here is a link to our website where you can learn more about XYZ product or service that you offer. So what we actually do in my business is I have this all set up in our CRM system. So we use Infusionsoft and it’s really easy in Infusionsoft to create a web form, an internal webform, that just has name, first name, last name, email address and phone number.

When we come back from the fair I have my staff enter all of that data using that internal webform and then I have programmed that webform to automatically send out a text message and an email message to that lead as soon as they hit enter.

And so that way, on our end, it’s not us typing out all of these emails, it’s literally just filling out some information into a form and then hitting submit and immediately that person gets a text and an email.

So if you can implement a similar system, that will allow you to do this much more efficiently.

Number two, add them to your email newsletter list. So when you are actually at the event and you have them filling out their contact information on their form, be sure that that form actually has a little line that indicates that by putting their information on this form, they are agreeing to receive your email newsletter, because that way you are securing permission from them.

But it’s really important that in addition to doing sort of one-on-one follow up with leads, you are also adding them to whatever long term nurture sequence you have in place for those leads.

So in our case we do a weekly email newsletter. I would encourage you to do the same if you are not already doing that. And so even if we totally drop the ball and do nothing else, I know that at the very least they are subscribed to our weekly email newsletter.

So you want to make sure that at the time you are entering these leads into your database, they are also automatically subscribed to your long term nurture sequence or your weekly email newsletter. Those are kind of the same thing in the business that you are in.

Number three, call to fulfill the sample or trial. If you set things up in the way that I described where you are capturing the people’s contact information in exchange for the trial or sample, then now you actually have a reason to follow up other than just hey, buy something from me. Right?

Because you have made them a promise, hey I’m going to give you a free sample or trial in exchange for your contact information and now the reason you are calling them is to actually fulfill that trial or sample.

So in the case of our business, whenever we do a street fair, we give away two free weeks of karate or kickboxing classes. So when we, after we enter the information into our system and they got their little note, hey it’s great meeting you. Here is some information about our programs. They also get automatically entered into our newsletter.

Over the course of the next couple of days we could actually take our time and calling each person and making an appointment for them to take their first free class.

So, you’ll find that when you collect leads at an event like this, not everyone is going to actually take you up on your offer. And it may seem a little weird to you because you are like, wait, I’m giving away free stuff. This is awesome.

But sometimes people just aren’t ready to take advantage of it. So don’t be surprised if you only get like say one out of ten people taking advantage of it right away. It’s totally normal.

And the beautiful thing is because you already entered that person into your long term nurture system, they are going to be hearing from you.

You are going to be given the opportunity now to develop that relationship. And I can tell you that in our business it’s very often happens that people have been on our list one year, two years or maybe even three years after we meet them at an event and it’s actually at that point that they come in and sign up for a program.

So don’t be alarmed if you aren’t converting all of these leads into customers right away, even into trials right away because sometimes people just aren’t ready to take advantage of it yet. It doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong.

So how many times should you follow up? I would say that you should follow up at least three times to offer them the free sample or trial that you talked about at the event.

So you want to reach out at least three times to fulfill that sample. If they are not responsive after three times, give them a little rest. It’s totally fine because know that your long term nurture sequence or your weekly email newsletter is going to take care of building that relationship with the clients so that when they are ready to purchase, they are going to think of you first.

All right. If you found this video useful, be sure to sign up to get email updates from me. You just have to go to carmensognonvi.com/newsletter and sign up there. And if you have a question you would like answered in a future video, just send your question to infor@carmensognonvi.com.

Okay, it’s time for some shout outs. We are doing some Instagram additions. I want to shout out to Loretta Williams Gornell, Carlos A. Ponte Jr. and Hustle Management. I have added their profiles below, so be sure to check them out. They are all people doing cool things and to the rest of you, thank you for watching.

Transcript

Do you feel stuck in your business? Have you hit a plateau and you feel like you just can’t turn things around?

Hi, Iím Carmen Sognonvi. Keep watching because in this video because Iím going to interview Brian Young. Brian Young is a home painter who experienced 15 consecutive years of declining sales.

He finally turned things around and in the last three years heís tripled hi revenues.And what did it take for all that to happen? Getting punched in the face by a customer.

Thatís right. Keep watching to find out his story.

By the way, if you would like to get a list of all the marketing tools I use to run all the marketing in my business head over to carmensognonvi.com/tools. Iíll share with you everything from who we use to graphic design and printing, and Iíll also tell you about a mobile app you can use to track flier distribution.

So let me tell you a little about Brian Young. Iím gonna read to you his bio: ìHe owns Home Painters Toronto, which is one of the most successful residential and commercial full service painting companies in the Greater Toronto Area. Since 2012 Brian has grown his companyís revenue by 350%.

Heís expanded his team to include 8 full-time employees, 25 sub-contractors, and heís reduced his work week from 80 hours to 65 hours. Heís frequently featured on Breakfast Television TV 44 24hr Makeover Show in Toronto and is an active volunteer and supporter of many local charities.

So I actually met Brian at Icon, which is the user conference of InfusionSoft and Brian at the conference won the ìSmall Business Icon of the Year Awardî , which is basically the highest award you could win at Icon, and I was so inspired and moved by his story that I really wanted to share it with all of you. So without further ado, here is my interview with Brian Young.

CS: Alright Brian, thank you so much for joining me today.

BY: Thank you very much. Great to have you.

CS:So, Brian, I was lucky enough to see your awesome presentation at Icon, which is the InfusionSoft user conference. You really shared the story of what your business was like before and this big transformation you made and the amazing results youíre seeing now.

So could you share with our viewers what was your before story? What did your business look like in the old days?

BY:Sure. Well, I started back in the University student back in 1987 and then I basically went out on my own after I graduated, which was 1991, and back then there was no internet, no cellphones, we used pagers pretty much as a way of communicating, and pretty much my main means of marketing was cold calling, flyer distribution, hung signs; so it was kind of old school that way. Absolutely no technology involved. And then thingsíve taken off since then and pretty much things were pretty much marketing wise the same right about ëtil 2000, 1998-2000, and thatís when the internet took over my business in terms of how clients started finding their painters and my old school marketing was slowly being phased out over time, and that was kind of the beginning of how things eventually had to change for me.

CS: And can you talk about what the business results were like? So, kind of like sales-wise, what does numbers look like.

BY: Yeah, so before, like back in 1987. Well, pretty much going up to 1997 things were going pretty strong, steadily increasing my business and then as I said, from 1997 to 2011 things were going down slowly. Itís hard to say. I canít even remember the sales back then, they were somewhere around the 3 to 5 hundred thousand dollar range [$300,000-$500,000], but things were staggering.

Like I had to work twice as hard to get my business and I could just feel the market not cooperating with me, even though I was trying every way to make it cooperate with me, it was not. And then right about up to 2012 things were, I think, around $375,000 in revenue, and then in the past 3 years since, of course, adapting internet and getting a website, and adopting these new marketing methods, technology related mostly, weíve been able to triple, more than 350% increase in revenue in the last few years.

CS: Wow, thatís amazing. So, just to kind of put it in perspective for people you essentially had for 15 years a steady decline. Is that safe to say?

BY: Exactly. Very safe to say. In fact, it was steady decline and what was even worse was: I had to work two to three times harder to maintain what was I was even having.

CS: So what was your work week like?

BY: I was always a workaholic, since being a kid, but I mean what would happen was: Iíd have to work a lot harder in that time to and then even longer. Pretty much, 60 would be a really slow week, and 90 would be a busy week.

CS: Weíre talking about hours per week?

BY: Hours, yes. So 60 to 90 hours a week. So yeah, a slow season would be 60 hours a week and our busy season I could work as many as 90. So, it was pretty crazy, yeah. And the bad thing about it was the harder I was working to maintain those sales, or even like keep, even though they were going down, it was just more and more work done to get that one sale, so I knew something wasnít working and the problem was I was just too stubborn to change and I didnít like the idea of adopting new methods of marketing, it was just all foreign to me so.

You know Iím a technology guy to the point where I would call people or text people, but I would never want to use it for my business.

CS: Yeah. And so tell us what changed. I know that there was one pivotal moment that made you rethink everything. So tell us that story.

BY: Yeah. I was always under the assumption growing up that the harder you work the more luck you would get and the better things would happen and that was kind of, I was still working super hard to get those sales, and then right up 2011 even though things were going down, a customer, basically I was canvasing a neighborhood and the client was upset ëcause I knocked on his door around dinner time and he shoved me and punched me in the face ëcause he was really offended that I was interrupting his dinner, and that was pretty much the time in my life were I said: ìYou know what? I canít keep doing this, this is just crazyî, and I had to change things.

CS: Wow, so you got punched in the face?

BY: Yes, exactly. And Iím a hockey player, so Iíd take it but it was like: ìCímon man, Iím just trying to paint your house here.î

CS: Yeah, youíre not on the rink. So tell us about what are some of the changes that you implemented then and was it kind of in one swoop or did you take little steps? Because I just really wanted to share your story with my audience because I know that there are so many business owners that can relate.

Theyíve been either stuck at this plateau or theyíve been experiencing the steady decline, and itís not that theyíre not working, theyíre working harder than ever before like you talked about, youíre working twice as much just to maintain that same level or lower level of sales, and they are trying different things. I know a lot of business owners, they are open minded, theyíre trying different things, theyíre trying a little bit of social media, theyíre trying some paper click stuff, but it still isnít quite coming together.

So what, after that night or that evening when you got punched in the face, what happened after that?

BY: Well, the first thing with change is like, you can have all the different methods in the world, but really itís more of a psychological change so you have to like just accept that : ìOk, Iím definitely wrong, doing something wrong here and I have to find it mentally before I start all these changes. Just adopt the idea, have an open mind and say: ìOK, now I have to be open to all these new things, even though Iím scared of them and Iíve never used any of them.î So, thatís the first thing: getting over the mental challenge of just realizing that youíre doing something wrong, admitting it and then changing.

So what was your second question?

CS: Yeah, what were the steps that you took?

BY: Yeah, specifically, I got a business coach, because like I said I was completely foreign to technology and, in terms of how I would use it for my business, and I knew other people were doing it but I had no idea. Like, I heard of like, obviously, websites I heard, but I had no idea of how Iíd market it, of how to implement this into something that would be revenue increasing.
Paper-Click, I kind of heard of it, but again, all this stuff was foreign to me, so I got a coach, which was the first thing I did and that really helped a lot. Although, when youíre first changing all these things thereís like I said a big mental hurdle: ìwhy do I have to do that? Why do I have to this? Why do I have to do that?

So, there was a huge mental change to get over the belief that these things can be done and these things can change my business. So, that was huge and it took me pretty much almost six months before I could start accepting that these things can work.

But once it started working, like the littlest thing, I started getting leads, I didnít have to call anymore, I was like: ìHoly Smokes! This is like unbelievableî I got these leads and I didnít have to ÖOK, so these little winds were what changed things and it kind of changed my belief system as to what was possible and what could happen, what could Internet do for me, what a website could do for me, what Paper Click could do for me, for all these different things and I started believing that it could work.

And as soon as I started believing it could work, thatís when I started going head in and say: ìOK, now letís go.î

CS: And, Iím curious: what were you getting any resources from within your industry? I know a lot of industries will have their own Trade Associations, or you know, sort of like industry specific consultants or publications. Were you kind of plugged into that, and if so were they talking about any of this stuff? Iím just kind of curious about what that landscape looked like.

BY: No, the painting industry is actually a little bit of a dinosaur, somewhat of a dinosaur industry, weíre still a little behind the times. Which actually worked to my advantage ëcause a lot of the industries like the info marketing, itís like obviously leading the way, but if we can apply some of those things that theyíre successful within painting businesses then, I mean, you could go from zero to ten in that much faster.

So, depending on the industry in my case most of the painters in my industry were pretty archaic. You could really likeÖ I pretty much in less than 6 months to 9 months, I rose to page one and one of the top, I would say top five to ten painters in Toronto in less than a year.

Yeah, and thatís just from those little winds, building on those little winds and then realizing what it could do for me, and then of course having systems like InfusionSoft, Paper Click, having a good SEO organic person working on your SEO, online/offline marketing as well, my on page marketing, as well as joining some amazing review sites such as HomeStars, for me Homestars is our number one lead source.

I also had to change the way I was looking at my business, and how I was running my business, because before I was running it not terribly but I wasnít as organized and when youíre online you tend to be exposed to letís say the bigger players, so you have to kind of range your game that way. Which was actually a good thing, I mean, itís good for the customer, good for me and my business and good for the industry in general.

CS: Oh thatís interesting. I want to talk a little bit more about that. So, when you said you were online you kind of have to compete a little bit against some of the bigger players so, what did that look like for your market where there are sort of these big chains, corporate companies that were already using some of these marketing methods that you kind of had to go up against, like what did that look like?

BY: Yeah. It wasnít too bad. Strauss, like I said was one of the big ones and Iím sure you know for many businesses, some people can be reasonable, some people can be not reasonable, so itís just a matter of upping your game, customer service wise, upping your system so youíd be delivering a better overall experience for the client, like even the smallest little thing, weíre always making little adjustments to make the client experience better.

So that was the main thing for painters is the better players in the industry were like, you know, they had a pretty good system and they were like, whereas before I was running a complete nightmare of a system for business. So that was the main thing: customer service was huge, production, pricing, just everything we were just in terms of increasing how our system were for that.

CS: Wow, so what Iím kind of hearing from you is that this whole journey started out with frustrations, specifically surrounding marketing, but in reality once you started going down this path it wasnít just about making over the marketing, it was making over the whole business.

BY: Yeah, absolutely. Because when youíre offline, when I was offline, you know, I mean, you could almost anything an no oneís going to really: ìWhat are you gonna do? Not use us againî, but when youíre online, everyone know everything and so you have to, everything from the type of pants you wear to the shirt, the logos, how you greet a customer, how you finish a job, the tiniest little thing, you know, people will nitpick at.

So you have to find ways to, how do I want to say, to you know, channel every potential problem there is; and which is a good thing because like I said, it ups your game, it makes the customerís experience better, it means you can charge more because youíre doing all these things that other companies arenít and now when, like for my business thereís very few painting companies that can compete with us, the only way they can compete with us is by coming significantly lower than us in price.

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Transcript

Are you planning to rent a booth at a street fair or a carnival? Are you looking for booth display ideas that will actually bring you customers? Hi, I’m Carmen Sognonvi. Keep watching, ‘cuz in this video I’m gonna share with you three ideas that will actually get people to come to your booth and generate leads for your business.

By the way if you want to get a list of the seven tools that I rely on to run all of the marketing in my business, go to carmensognovi.com/tools. I’ll share with you everything from who we use for…for graphic design and printing. And I’ll even tell you about a mobile app that you can use to track your flyer distribution.

So if you’re going to be renting a booth at an event, it’s really important that you stay focused on your primary goal. Now remember, your primary goal is not just to get the word out about your business.

Your number one goal is to to generate leads for your business. In other words, you want to collect names, email addresses, and phone numbers to add to your customer database and keep in touch with them, so that you can actually follow up and turn those leads into customers.

Number 1: Brand Everything.

One of the best ways to stand out from your competitors at an event, is to make sure that everyone and everything at the event of yours is branded with your logo. This makes you look instantly much more professional, and it also gives the passersby immediate information about what it is that you do. So, any team members including yourself that are working the event, make sure you guys are all wearing t-shirts or polo shirts that have your logo emblazoned on it.

If you have some kind of an offer or a call to action that you can put really big and bold on the back, even better. Don’t just stop at t-shirts. Think about wearing hats as well. If you have a hat and a shirt that are both in bright, matching colors that have your logo on it, that’s really gonna stand out.

And then of course, don’t forget about your booth itself. There’s so many opportunities to get your branding out there with your booth. If you have the budget, you can actually get tent covers, and table…sorry, I forgot what they’re called -but sort of table covers customized with your logo.

And, if you really want to get fancy, you can actually also get side panels for your tent as well with your logo on there as well. If you’re on a smaller budget, but you still want a branded look, one inexpensive way to do it is by buying a vinyl banner and having that printed and customized with your logo.

So, vinyl banners -I usually get ours from esigns.com. They run about….maybe 20, 30 bucks. It’s pretty inexpensive obviously, depending on size. And, um…what we do, is we actually attach the banner to the front of our table using Velcro.

And so, it stays on really well, looks nice and clean and professional, but if you’re ever out of Velcro and this has happened to us on occasion, duct tape will do. It’s not as pretty, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Number 2: Don’t Stay in One Place

Don’t think that just because you rented a booth you have to stay at that booth at your event. Don’t forget that there are tons of people walking around this event all over the place and only a small portion of them may walk by your booth. Or maybe if they walk by your booth, only a portion of them will actually notice you.

So, you want to really take advantage of the entire event. The best way to do this is to keep one person always at the booth, ‘cuz obviously that needs to manned, but then have another person or maybe two or three people walking around the rest of the event with a clipboard. Now remember, they need to be decked out in your branded attire.

And they should walk around with a clipboard, going up to people, and letting them know about whatever special offer you’ve got going on that day at the fair. Now, if you’ve watched my other video on why you should should not hand out logo merchandise -I call it the “No Tote Bag Rule” -you’ll know that, um…I always recommend that you have some kind free trial or free offer that you’re giving away at an event like this.
So, you have your staff walking around with a clipboard, going up to people, introducing themselves, saying, “Hi, My name is Carmen, I’m from Urban Martial Arts, I just want to let you know that we’re actually giving away two free weeks of classes today.

If you’re interested just put down your name, number, and email address.” So, that way you’re not just relying on whatever foot traffic happens to pass by your booth. You’re actually making…uh..taking advantage of the entire event.

Number 3: Grab Their Attention

Don’t be shy about drawing people into your booth by whatever means necessary. So, play loud music at your booth. Umm…have a prize wheel -this is something that actually a lot of martial art schools put to great use. Have a mascot. So, let me talk a little more about those last two things.

So, prize wheel. You’ve probably seen those things where you spin it around, makes [makes ticking noise] kind of noise, and people love these things. Plus, it’s really noisy so it gets people to notice your table and see what’s going on.

And umm….and basically you have to be very strategic about the prizes that you put on the prize wheel. Because remember, what’s your number one goal at an event? To generate leads. Right? So you want to be capturing names, email addresses, and phone numbers. That’s it.

So, the prize that you give away needs to relate back to that. In other words, it shouldn’t be, for example, oh, spin this wheel and if you land on this particular square, then I’m gonna give you this free branded pen. Then they just take the pen and they go away and you haven’t captured their contact info.

The prizes need to be trials of your product or service. But, things that you are not going to give them right away. So, in other words, in order for them to claim the prize, they have to give you their contact information.

So, be very strategic about it. Think about what would make sense to give away in this kind of a prize wheel situation. But, make sure that it is something that they have to create an exchange with you where they give you their contact information in order for you to deliver this freebie to them.

Now one thing that we’ve put to use in the past is having a big mascot at our booth. So, back in the early days when we first started Urban Martial Arts, the first couple years when we did street fairs…um…that was when Kung Fu Panda was really big.

I don’t know if you guys remember that movie. But there were no actual Kung Fu Panda costumes available for rent. So what we did is, we kind of hobbled together our own bootleg version. So we basically rented a panda costume.

We put a karate uniform top with our logo on the panda and that became our Kung Fu Panda. And so what we would do is we would have this panda walking around, shaking hands with the kids, taking pictures, but one thing that’s really important is, we always had one of our staff members walking with the panda with a clipboard, talking to parents, talking about the two free weeks we were offering, collecting those names and numbers.

The one mistake that I see too many businesses do is, you have these cool things, right? You’re giving away balloons, you’re doing face painting, you’ve got mascots. So, you’re providing entertainment for the people at the fair, but you’re not able to generate that entertainment into something that benefits you.

Now, if you just want to do that just to kind of be part of the community and to give back, that’s fine, no problem. But, if your primary goal is to generate business for yourself, then you need to be strategic. So, if you’re gonna have a mascot, make sure that you’re then taking all that attention that’s being captured and funnel it into a way to capture all of those leads.

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Okay, it’s time for some shout outs! And it’s another Instagram edition. If you’re not already following me on Instagram be sure to to. I am @carmensognovi, very easy to find. So, I wanna shout out @JovelleChipriano, @ChampagneToCrayons, @beprismatic, and @MyKeel52.

I’ve linked to all of their profiles below. Be sure to check them out and to the people that I shouted out, thank you for your awesome comments on my Instagram posts. I love having you guys follow me there, it’s really fun to have conversations with you guys.

And, if you’re not following me on Instagram, make sure that you get started because you’re missing out!

Alright, thanks for watching.

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